Today, the Civil Rights Movement is portrayed as a mostly nonviolent movement. Although nonviolent practices occurred such as marches, boycotts, and sit-ins, leaders such as Malcolm X. and W. E. B. Dubois were notorious for using violent practices that implemented the use of guns. However, a majority of violent oppression in modern-day history books is ignored. National organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were remembered for their nonviolent activism. Surprisingly, many members of these organizations did use varying levels of self-defense including the use of guns when necessary while engaging in the Freedom Movement. Civil rights activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, were remembered for advocating for social reform in their communities through nonviolent protests and marches. However, Martin Luther King Jr. carried a gun around during protests for self-protection and had an arsenal of weapons in his home. Cobb explains, Although nonviolence was crucial to th
e gains made by the freedom struggleÂ…those gains could not have been achieved without the complementary and still underappreciated practice of armed self-defense (Cobb ).
Cobb is a former member of the SNCC and incorporated personal anecdotes of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. His extensive knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement obtained through his experiences explains the life of African Americans in greater depth during the 960s. Cobb explains, As the 960s opened, White-Supremacist terrorists& increased their attacks on civil rights workers and leadersÂ…local and state governments supported this violence and it was largely ignored by the federal government (Cobb 4). Civil rights leaders were under constant threat of White Terror such as the Ku Klux Klan and night riders. A branch of the NAACP was established in McComb in 964 and that summer more then a dozen bombings occurred in McComb (Cobb 43). Cobb explained how the leaders of national organizations began to realize that their practices put members in danger of getting hurt or even killed.